a bowstring. "Forward," I said, and we plunged into the gloom.
The travel was very slow at first, but as our feet grew adept in the manners of the ground, we were able slowly to increase our pace. At brief intervals I ordered the men to number themselves—one, two, three, four, etc.—to make sure that no one had fallen from the ranks. After about ten minutes, the increasing firmness and flatness of the ground indicated that we had come upon a trail. We should have lost the track repeatedly, however, but for the variations in the note of the whistle, which took on a sharp, short, warning emphasis when we deviated from the path. The German fire crossed our route rather irregularly and aimlessly from time to time, and I noticed, or thought I noticed, that the voice timed itself to these explosions, bringing us to a halt by its cessation just before a tract of ground in our front was swept by hostile fire. A cheerfulness and trust, remarkable in view of the danger and difficulty that still encircled us, animated the entire column, and I felt its rebound in the rise of my own spirits. We were clearly retracing our route, and I tried to recall remembered objects, though in that darkness it was very hard to make out a correspondence between dim sights and dimmer memories.
I should have been glad to identify the spot at
